Feeling: recovered
Listening to: Brahms - Intermezzo in D
Reading/Watching: Georgette Heyer - Bath Tangle

Sunday morning, 7:35 a.m. Something hurts. Probably my bladder; get up to pee.

Okay, so peeing happening, but pain remains. Perhaps it's just vicious menstrual cramps. I'm at mon coeur's apartment, and my Midol is at home, so obviously it's time to go home. I need to get showered and dressed to go sing at church, anyway.

Halfway home, the pain is so intense that a wave of nausea sweeps over me. I pull over into the parking lot of a mall, open my car door, and squeeze my eyes shut, trying to get a grip. Never had cramps this bad before. Then I keep driving.

On my own street, I pull over again, and this time baptize the curb with bright yellow bile. There is nothing in my stomach. I'm almost there. I have to get home. I can't stop here; stupid cramps are not going to beat me.

Once in the door, I unceremoniously dump my purse on the floor, and race for the medicine cabinet. I take some Midol, a multivitamin, and hesitate before adding in my allergy medication. Those pills are fricking expensive if I'm going to throw up again. Maybe not.

Five minutes later, bending over the toilet and adding the non-contents of my stomach to it, I decide perhaps I'm not going to church today. It's getting hard to focus my eyes, and I'm beginning to wonder how I managed to drive home. I call the priest's home number, and inform his wife that I'm not feeling well, and please apologize to everyone, but I intend to be back next week. I decide to hold off on canceling the wedding I'm supposed to do at the synagogue at noon. It's only 8:00 now, and it's a wedding. That's somebody's forever-day. I won't cancel that one unless I absolutely have to.

I've never been admitted to a hospital, except once, when I had an asthma attack at the age of nine or ten. I was in the ER for an hour, breathing into a vapory inhaler-thing, and then I went home again. Five years of college, and not once did I need a doctor in Schoolville. But perhaps it's time to call home and see if our insurance would cover a visit. The pain isn't going away; it's getting worse. I'm panting now.

I resolved to stay calm, not freak anyone out, because the last thing I need is a three-ring circus over intense PMS. But as soon as I hear my mother's voice on the phone, my voice changes from confident and clear to a quivering whimper.

"Mom? It's Katie. I... I don't want to scare you or anything, but something's wrong with my stomach, and I wondered if I could maybe go to the hospital?"

They told me to call Maffrew's mother-in-law, Mary, because she's a nurse and lives in town. She'll know the best hospital to go to, and perhaps she'll be nice enough to drive me. There is no answer on her phone, however, so instead I call 911 and ask for an ambulance. They arrive in seven minutes.

I wake Nimsay to tell her what's going on, finally have the presence of mind to wish I had a bra on. But it's too late. I get into the ambulance, bra-less, and explain the situation to the driver guys, who are nice and make little jokes while we drive to the hospital, which for some reason they refer to as The Pit.

Once inside, after telling a nurse all my information, she says the wait "isn't too long", and I get into the waiting room. I discover why it's The Pit. Loads of people, filling most of the chairs, noise, crying baby. I find a chair and sit down, deciding that maybe I shouldn't have come to the hospital after all. Couldn't I have done better to just stay home and take some ibuprofen?

Then I ask for a basin, and throw up three times in twenty minutes. There's nothing in my stomach, hardly even any bile left. But for some reason, every time the pain makes my eyes blur, I just vomit. One of the women in the waiting room (a patient) brings me a wad of damp, cold paper towels. I smile and thank her, and wipe my mouth.

I've been there an hour when I call the wedding pianist and the synagogue cantor and tell them I won't be singing today. I feel like I should feel guilty, but somehow I don't care as much, leaning against the cool white wall.

Dad calls, panicked for some reason, and tells me that Mom is driving to Schoolville right now. I try to convince him that it's no big deal, but since I brilliantly manage to dry heave two separate times while talking to him, he doesn't believe me. He also convinces me that I should call someone to sit with me, just in case I faint.

I call mon coeur. It wakes him up, which makes me feel bad, and in the midst of arguing with myself (out loud) about whether or not he should come to the ER with me, I dry heave again. By the time I try to talk to him, he needs no convincing. He asks which hospital I'm in, and hangs up.

Then Mary calls, all apologies. She was out at breakfast earlier. She's on her way now. I'm suddenly relieved.

Mon coeur and Mary sit with me for another hour in the waiting room. By this time, I can't focus my eyes, so just keep them shut. Sometimes I can't talk. I'll stand, thinking it will help to walk around, and then my knees will give out. No one can do anything; Mary just strokes my hair and mon coeur holds me close and for some reason it feels so much better that someone's there. I'm beginning to think this might be a big deal, after all.

Mary says this is ridiculous, the way the nurses are ignoring me, and tells me her friend at a different hospital is working in the ER right now, and he says he can take me in right away. If we leave, it will be filed as Against Medical Advice, and insurance might not cover it, but I would get a bed to lie down in. My parents and I agree: we're leaving. Mary loads me into her car, bedpan in my hands, and mon coeur follows us to the other hospital.

They give me a bed in five minutes flat.

Part Two forthcoming... if this is grossing you out, feel free to skip the next one.

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